"OUR HEADS ARE BLOODY BUT UNBOWED ... - Article 19

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present "5-4-2 system" of schooling - i.e. five years primary (including one yearkindergarten), four years middle and two years high school.Such figures, however, masked a deep malaise. Isolated from the outside world,education suffered under the BSPP from the same disastrous mix of repression,mismanagement, poverty and corruption which afflicted every other walk of nationallife. Undoubtedly one of the most fertile and potentially prosperous countries in Asia,by 1987 Burma had slumped to become one of the world's ten poorest countries withLeast Developed Country (LDC) status at the United Nations.Many of the changes enforced by Ne Win in education were apparently whimsical.For example, after abolishing English from education in 1966, it was reintroducedfrom kindergarten level in 1980. Perhaps the most disturbing evidence of Burma'sdecline was in literacy standards. In the 1970s Burma had twice won UN prizes forliteracy campaigns, but in 1987 the official literacy rate of 78.6 per cent was droppedto just 18.7 per cent - apparently to comply with the rate of less than 20 per centrequired for LDC status at the UN. However, according to UNICEF, in Burma today80 per cent of schoolchildren do not complete more than four grades of schooling.The same damaging consequences are apparent throughout all Burma's universitiesand colleges of higher education. With the tight restrictions enforced by the BSPP onresearch, travel and publishing, all Ph.D. programmes in Burma came to an end. Thetraining of teaching staff also failed to keep pace with the expansion in college placesand preference in promotion was given to BSPP members. Such mismanagement andlack of planning has resulted in the collapse of many specialist departments, such asanthropology and philosophy. Vocational education has similarly suffered.Many teachers complain that their difficulties have been compounded by the BSPP'sdecision, following anti-government protests in the mid-1970s, to divide scantresources and break up the large concentration of students and facilities in Rangoonand Mandalay by introducing a regional college system. Today the 17 regionalcolleges are affiliated to Burma's three universities of Rangoon, Mandalay andMoulmein on a geographical basis. There are also seven specialist institutes, such astechnology and agriculture, under the Department of Higher Education and fourmedical institutes under the Ministry of Health. A huge correspondence course systemwas also begun which by 1988, according to the BSPP, accounted for just over100,000 of the 360,000 students in higher education.However, long before the events of 1988 many Burmese academics and teachers hadgiven up in frustration and left, legally or illegally, for abroad. Under the SLORC thisexodus has gathered pace. Currently over 100 Burmese lecturers are working atAssumption University in Bangkok alone where some 2,000 students have applied forrefugee status. To date only 516 have officially been accepted by the Thai authoritiesto be sent to a proposed "safe camp" and an uncertain future, while the others liveunder the constant threat of arrest or deportation.Meanwhile, an estimated 2,000 students, as well as many teachers, doctors andlawyers, remain in the ethnic borderlands where many have joined the armed AllBurma Students Democratic Front formed in the aftermath of the SLORC takeover.
11. PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTUREIn September 1992 all Burma's universities and institutes of higher education finallyreopened and officials from the Ministry of Education travelled abroad to try and gainfunding and support for the new SLORC reforms. A 26-page paper, Education inMyanmar, was distributed which, stressing the support the government had alreadyreceived from UNESCO, the UNDP and UNICEF, outlined three major objectives bythe government to support the change from a "socialist centrally planned" economy toa "free market economy": the expansion of basic education, greater emphasis onscience and technology in higher education, and the urgent training of moretechnicians and skilled workers.At no point, however, was the deep state of crisis in education in Burmaacknowledged. There was no mention of the events of 1988, the repeated closure ofthe universities, the arrests and sackings, the compulsory `re-education' of lecturersand doctors, and the many restrictions imposed by the SLORC on academic freedom.Nor was there any mention of Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD's victory in the 1990election which in the eyes of many citizens means Burma already has an electedgovernment today. Equally remarkable, there was no mention of the continuingfighting in ethnic minority areas, and other than the usual platitudes there was nocommitment to change on ethnic minority policy in education. Like other SLORCvisions of Burma there is a huge gap between the reality and the rhetoric.Now in December 1992 the universities have once again been opened, a NationalConvention to draw up the principles for a new constitution has been scheduled forJanuary 1993, and the first release of political prisoners has begun. Under the newSLORC chairman Gen. Than Shwe some diplomats see distant signs of the firstchange in SLORC policy and a slight thaw in the army's uncompromising stand onwho should institute reform.Great attention is focused on the National Convention where the SLORC is expectedto reveal its hand. But after the many disappointments of the last four years, for themoment many citizens believe any optimism is likely to be misplaced. Burma remainsin a state of fear. Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel peace prize winner, is still underhouse arrest, refugee numbers continue to grow, and most political parties and ethnicgroups have been excluded from the decision-making process.For many citizens the best litmus test of when peace really returns to Burma remainsthe universities and the state of education. Following the long tradition in Burmesepolitics from the days of Aung San, it was on the campuses that the democracyprotests began in 1988 and it is here that many believe the democracy movement willone day revive."Our heads are bloody but unbowed," runs a popular student slogan.
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Page 5 and 6: Military control is absolute over a
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Page 9 and 10: Many students and academics who hav
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Page 21 and 22: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis report was wri

"OUR HEADS ARE BLOODY BUT UNBOWED ... - Article 19

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